January 3, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



var. aristata, had commenced to spread so as to 

 become a weed in the eastern part of the Dis- 

 trict. After enumerating a number of similar 

 plants rare in the District, the speaker made 

 some brief remarks upon the morphology of 

 some of these, e. g., Pogonia ophioglosaoides, 

 Orchis spectabilis, Smilax herbacea, etc. 



The evening was devoted to an address bj' 

 by the President, Surgeon General George M. 

 Sternberg, U. S. A. , on the Practical Eesults of 

 Bacteriological Researches. 



F. A. Lucas, 



Secretai'y. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



At the 241st meeting of the Society held 

 December 17th, a paper on ' The Animistic 

 Vampire in New England ' was read by 

 George R. Stetson. This superstition of an- 

 cient Babylonia, Chaldea and the far East by 

 some mysterious survival, occult transmission 

 or remarkable atavism, is prevalent in the scat- 

 tered hamlets and more pretentious Villages 

 of central Rhode Island. It is an extraordi- 

 nary instance of a barbaric superstition out crop- 

 ping in, and coexisting with a high general 

 culture, and which is not so uncommon, if rarely 

 so extremely aggravated, crude and painful. 



The superstition is there unknown by its 

 proper name. The local belief, however, pre- 

 cisely corresponds to the statement of the vam- 

 pire superstition contained in Calmet's ' Traite 

 sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vam- 

 pires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, 

 etc,' Paris, 1751, and as it now survives in 

 eastern and western Europe. 



It is, that a wasting disease is not a physical, 

 but a sj)iritual ailment, obsession or visitation ; 

 that as long as the body of a dead relative of 

 the person attacked has blood in its heart it is 

 proof that an occult influence steals from it for 

 death, and is at work draining the blood of the 

 living into the heart' of the dead and causing 

 his rapid decline and death. 



As in the middle age, the Rhode Island vam- 

 pire is located, if, on opening the grave, the body 

 is found to be of a rose color, the beard, hair 

 or nails renewed and the veins and heart filled 

 with blood. 



The means taken for relief are also precisely 



those followed in parts of the Levant and else- 

 where, viz: exhumation of the body and burn- 

 ing the heart and scattering its ashes to the 

 winds. The persons indulging in this supersti- 

 tion in Rhode Island are not foreigners, but 

 native born New Englanders. It is declared 

 upon excellent authority to be prevalent in all 

 the isolated districts of the southern parts of 

 the State and that many instances of it can be 

 found in the large centers of population. 



As to its origin in Rhode Island there is no 

 record; it is in all probability an exotic like 

 ourselves, originating in the mythographic pe- 

 riod of the Aryan and Semitic peoples. 



No known precise parallel in the western 

 Indian mythology has come to our knowledge. 

 The Ojibwas and Cherokees have, however, 

 something analagous. 



Abundant evidence is at hand that the animis- 

 tic vampire superstition still retains its hold in 

 its original habitat ; an illustration of the re- 

 markable tenacity and continuity of a supersti- 

 tion through centuries of intellectual progress 

 from a lower to a higher culture, and of the impo- 

 tency of the latter to entirely eradicate from 

 itself the traditional beliefs, customs, habits, 

 observances and impressions of the former. 



Mr. William Eleroy Curtis read a paper 

 on the Regulation of tlie Social Evil in Japan, 

 reviewing the legislation and imperial edicts 

 that have appeared on that subject and de- 

 scribing the present method of confining prosti- 

 tution to certain qu.arters of the cities and 

 towns and making those who practice that pro- 

 fession practically prisoners under the con- 

 stant surveillance of the police. The govern- 

 ment of Japan prohibits any woman from fol- 

 lowing the business of a courtesan without the 

 Avritten consent of her parents, or her guardian, 

 if she be an orphan, and requires her to make 

 a contract for a term of years with the keeper 

 of some hashi-zashiki, as the houses of prosti- 

 tution are called. During this period she is not 

 permitted to leave the limit of the Yoshiwara, 

 as the quarter is designated, except on certain 

 occasions which are enumerated in the law, or 

 upon the expression of a desire to reform.. 

 "When her contract is cancelled her license is 

 surrendered, and she becomes a ticket-of-leave 

 woman, subject to police surveillance until she 



